ED Deadline To Approve State K-12 Plans Looms

The Department of Education faces a July 1 deadline for giving its
stamp of approval to states' plans to coordinate their federal K-12
programs and funding.

About 12 states have yet to win the final federal endorsement for
their so-called consolidated plans for programs under the 1994
Improving America's Schools Act and other federal laws, according to
Gerald N. Tirozzi, the assistant secretary for elementary and secondary
education.

"We're going to work together with states to make sure we get this
done," Mr. Tirozzi said in an interview last week.

Mr. Tirozzi had signed off on the final plans of close to 40 states
by late last week. Of the remaining states, only a few may face major
obstacles to winning the department's approval so they can receive
their portion of federal K-12 aid starting July 1.

The department will temporarily withhold money from states without
approved plans by the deadline. Federal officials, however, will
continue to seek compromises with states.

If any standoff lasts past the middle of July, Mr. Tirozzi said, the
department will consider imposing its ultimate penalty: revoking a
state's eligibility for money from the $11 billion pool of elementary
and secondary program funding in the 1997-98 school year.

Range of Programs at Stake

The affected programs include the Title I program for disadvantaged
students, Dwight D. Eisenhower Professional Development grants, the
Safe and Drug-Free Schools initiative, and migrant education. If a
state chooses, consolidated plans also may cover federal vocational
education, school reform, and technology programs.

In the 2 1/2 years since the department released guidelines on
consolidating state planning for federal K-12 programs, state and
federal officials have bounced various proposals back and forth.

In 1995, the federal K-12 office asked states to prepare general
outlines of how they would use federal money, giving them until last
summer to complete a detailed plan.

Last year, Mr. Tirozzi said, six states won the department's
approval to operate the federal programs in their states until fiscal
2000--when the Improving America's Schools Act expires. The 1994 law
reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

In addition, Alabama, Georgia, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and
Wyoming received one-year extensions to finalize plans on the condition
that they propose major changes and clarifications by March 15 of this
year and that the department approve those amendments by July 1. The
department requested that the remaining states make minor changes, Mr.
Tirozzi said.

South Dakota and about 35 other states so far have amended their
documents to satisfy the department. They will be eligible to receive
federal money starting July 1, officials here and in South Dakota
say.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, state and federal officials are still hashing
out an agreement. Members of Mr. Tirozzi's staff went to Atlanta for
three days of meetings with Georgia officials last week and appeared to
make progress toward a resolution, according to a state official.

"We identified all of the issues that they had and that we had,"
said John Roddy, Georgia's director of federal programs. "All that
remains for us to do is some follow-up and [to] provide additional
information to the department."

Creative Leap

Under the 1994 law, which rewrote requirements for Title I and other
K-12 programs, states got the opportunity to merge several program
plans once filed separately. Federal officials urged them to take the
chance to think creatively about how programs generally viewed as
separate fiefdoms could interact to promote school reform.

But many states did not provide enough specifics in their plans to
satisfy the department. The issues that caused the most headaches were
the setting of performance standards for Title I students and defining
how states would assess students to determine whether they were making
"adequate yearly progress" toward performance goals, Mr. Tirozzi and
others said.

Some state officials complained that the department was unclear
about what it expected from them, or expected too much of them.

"The process worked fairly well," said Leigh M. Manasevit, a
Washington-based lawyer who represents state education departments on
federal matters. Some states he represents encountered significant
hurdles, but all of their differences with the federal government are
now settled, he added.

For example, the Department of Education said states should not use
a translation of English tests when they assess the progress of
limited-English-proficient children in Title I. The translation would
not yield comparable data for English-speakers and students who are not
fluent in English, according to the department.

But the department did not offer any concrete guidance on what
states should do instead, Mr. Manasevit said.

State Difficulties

One reason South Dakota failed to win long-term approval for its
initial submission was its failure to spell out how it would define
"adequate yearly progress" of Title I students until it had created
final tests to do so, said the state official who coordinated the
plan.

The state, without a large headquarters staff or the resources of a
large research university, struggled to get the help it needed to fully
explain what it wanted to do. Federal officials waited until too late
in the process last year for the state to revise its first draft and
add the details the federal Education Department wanted, said Ruth
Smith, the administrator of the state's office of technical
assistance.

"It's been tough for us to get to the level of detail they
expected," Ms. Smith said. "We struggled with that."

Georgia's first plan fell short because its state testing system
yields pass-fail results rather than dividing student performance into
three categories as Title I requires, Mr. Roddy said.

The state department staff, however, does not have the power to
change the state's assessment without a vote by the state board of
education.

Talks with federal officials clarified how the state can adjust its
current tests without the state board's approval, Mr. Roddy said.

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